Nude Child Photographs Evade Censorship

Australian artist Victoria Larielle's photographs of nude 11-year-old boys managed to dodge the kind of protest that fellow artist Bill Henson's work triggered, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.Larielle's exhibition was meant to challenge the censorship of Henson'simages, which featured a nude adolescent girl and boy. Policeseized Henson's photographs in Sydney last month, while a Melbourne detective only visited Larielle's exhibiton without pressing charges.

"I had always admired [Henson] as an artist," she said. "I'veseen his work as a collective, not as portrayed by the media insnippets, so that you lose the whole feel of the art."

Larielle's images, exhibited in the Loop Bar in central Melbourne, wereshot in 2001 in black and white and feature pre-adolescent boys invarious poses outside. She said her models and their parents had givenpermission for the photographs to be used in the exhibition. Larielleexplained that she was attempting to portray the vulnerability andfragility of people of all ages, just as Henson tried to do.